DETROIT—Toyota's stage looks empty. I peer around a photographer to see if I can locate the hidden door that will produce the company's big announcement. I don't see one.

Image: Sarah Jacobsson Purewal

Apparently this wasn't a stage prop.

Music starts playing. A bright-red racecar zips across the booth-wide projection screen. Six people dressed in white Toyota jumpsuits and blacked-out helmets leap onto the stage and start pulling apart a large, red, riveted box—forgive me, I thought that was part of the stage itself. One of the chains gets caught, and a stage manager has to come out to help open the box.

And then I have to check the signage to make sure I'm at the right booth, because the car that drives out is unlike any Toyota I've ever seen. With its fiercely angled headlights and swooping side scoops, the Toyota FT-1 concept looks a little like what you might get if you crossed a Scion FR-S with a Lotus Elise.